Monty Don is the presenter of Gardeners’ World (the main gardening programme on TV in the UK), and this book was published to ‘accompany’ another of his offerings, the BBC series of ‘Around the World in 80 Gardens’. I only saw a few episodes of that, and read this book as a stand-alone item. It’s great: interesting, informative and unsurprisingly very wide-ranging. Inevitably covering only a few (80) of the gardens of the world and only mentioning these few briefly (288 pages in total) and yet Monty Don gives thoughtful reactions and interpretations for each garden he has included. He spends time trying to understand Japanese Zen gardens; is careful to visit black as well as white South Africans; marvels in the wonders of the Italian renaissance and modern Dutch gardens; and generally visits every continent (except Antarctica) and tries to visit varied gardens everywhere. Colour photos are included and I sometimes found myself wishing (in a good way) that I could see around the corners to glimpse more of the gardens described.
Monty is only rarely uncomplimentary and I feel I should say that in contrast to his apparent experience, I remember wonderful gardens in Thailand! Or perhaps those were farms, rather than gardens. Despite having a few (probably inevitable) quibbles over some of the gardens that were chosen, I think that he did a good job with this book. It gives quite a concentrated experience. Having completed it I felt as if I’d had a rather wonderful overview of many and various examples of the approaches that a diverse and wonderful humanity applies to gardening around the world.
From a ‘limestone garden’ perspective: the soil is mentioned sometimes, and so it has some relevance. I am now keen to try out Biochar (or maybe just some plain charcoal) to create something like the fertile ‘black earth’ he found in long-abandoned Amazon gardens and so help my shrubs along.
Don, Monty (2008) Around the World in 80 Gardens. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 288pp. hbk. ISBN 978-0-297-84450-1
Limestone Garden 